WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Twenty-four applicants from as far away as California applied to be the town's next fire chief, the Prudential Committee learned on Wednesday.

 

By the end of next month, one of those applicants could be named the replacement for retiring Chief Craig Pedercini.

 

At Wednesday's meeting of the committee, which oversees the fire district, member Joe Beverly, who also serves on the district's Personnel Committee, reported that the latter body had reviewed two dozen applicants who sought to lead the call-volunteer department.

 

On Thursday, Beverly said, the Personnel Committee will interview six applicants from that pool.

 

The hiring screening committee hopes to be able to present two or three finalists to the Prudential Committee to interview at its Feb. 26 meeting, Beverly said.

 

"We were all very satisfied with the number [of applicants]," he said. "We all had a chance to review them ourselves and pick out the top six or seven. We met last week and narrowed down the list. We're doing six interviews tomorrow, and then we'll whittle down to a second round [of interviews]."

 

The final interviews by the Prudential Committee, the hiring authority for the department's chief, likely will be conducted without one of the elected members of the body.

 

On Wednesday, Lindsay Neathawk reported to her colleagues that her research into relevant Massachusetts General Law led to the conclusion that Prudential Committee members who also serve in the Fire Department cannot participate in the hiring process for a chief who would, in effect, be that firefighter's superior.

 

"He would be signing off on who his boss is, essentially," Neathawk said. "There's a conflict of interest in him being a paid call firefighter within the district."

 

Currently, one member of the five-person Prudential Committee, Alex Steele, is a firefighter in the district.

 

Steele, who joined the meeting after the initial conversation on the conflict-of-interest issue, questioned the need for him to withdraw entirely from the process.

 

"My understanding right now is that in financial matters I have a direct interest in, such as the pay of firefighters, I have to abstain," Steele said. "While I may have to abstain from a vote on a candidate, I don't think I have to recuse myself from the discussion."

 

Beverly countered, noting that he was the one who asked for clarification on having a district employee involved in the hiring process.

 

"In one role, you're [the chief's] subordinate," Beverly said. "In your other role, he's the subordinate of the Prudential Committee. It's an area where it didn't seem ethical to be doing it. As a member, you may have a biased opinion about any candidates. You can't have a totally objective eye when you already know some of the people who may be on that list."

 

The candidate pool is not known to the public unless or until it has been narrowed down to a set of finalists for the full Prudential Committee to consider. On Wednesday, Beverly at one point implied that there may be an internal candidate on the list.

 

Steele, after getting more clarification on the Personnel Committee's process, did not return on Tuesday to the question of whether he could participate in the hiring process when it comes to the full Prudential Committee.

 

In other business on Wednesday, the committee heard that the new station building process hit a rare snag, but it is not expected to throw off the timeline, which currently calls for the Main Street station to be occupied in late 2025 or early 2026.

 

"My run of good news every month has hit a speed bump," district building consultant Bruce Decoteau told the committee. "As you've probably noticed, there's been a slowdown in steel erection. We had an issue with anchor bolts.

 

"Steel will start being delivered tomorrow. A crane should be on site early next week with erection starting then. We're a week or 10 days behind where I thought it would be at the last meeting."

 

That said, Decoteau said he had talked to the project superintendent, who is confident that the lost time can be recovered.

 

"They don't feel it's going to impact the date of substantial completion," Decoteau said.

 

Less optimistic was Pedercini's report on Engine 2, which the committee discussed at its November 2024 meeting.

 

"The steel subframe needs to be totally replaced," Pedercini said.

 

He said the cost for redoing the corrosion-damaged subframe and axle housing likely would be around $56,000. Technicians at Alliance Used Truck Center in Hartford, Conn., also still have to evaluate the engine's truck, and the replacement cost for that "on the high side" is about another $25,000, Pedercini said.

 

"It's a lot in one respect, but if we start looking at replacing that truck, we're talking $1 million, so it's not as heavy a hit for us [to refurbish it]," Pedercini said.

 

"It would be around $80,000, and that doesn't include paint or anything like that."

 

Pedercini said that flaking paint has been an issue on Engine 2 since it was acquired by the district in 2006. But he said addressing it would just be cosmetic as the apparatus has an aluminum body that won't rust.

 

He said that a few years ago, the district had an estimate of around $40,000 for a new paint job on its Engine 1, and Pedercini recommended that flaking or peeling paint is not a priority.

 

"It's nice to have a truck that looks nice, but it's not a parade piece," he said. "I'd rather have a working fire truck that's safe to drive than to have something that looks fantastic to drive down the road."

 

District Treasurer Billie Jo Sawyer asked the committee how it would want to pay for the extraordinary, unbudgeted expense of as much as $80,000.

 

She said that the district does have some money in its reserve fund and money budgeted for operations and maintenance that has not been spent in fiscal year 2025 but indicated the combination might not be enough.

 

Prudential Committee Chair David Moresi asked Sawyer to look into using some of the interest that has accrued on a certificate of deposit in the district's stabilization fund as a potential funding source.

 

Also in Pedercini's report to the committee, he noted that both last month and last year were particularly busy ones for the department.

 

The WFD had 34 fire calls in December and 381 calls in calendar year 2024. That second number was up from 241 calls in 2023 and 227 the year before.

 

"We've done our fair share of medical calls, but that might be a fifth of [the increase] or something," Pedercini said. "A lot of extra activated alarms. We had some strange calls this year for things."

 

Finally on Wednesday, the Prudential Committee finalized the date and time for the district's annual election and meeting. Two seats on the committee, those held by Beverly and Steele, will be on the ballot.

 

The election will be held from 4 to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, May 27, at Williamstown Elementary School with the annual district meeting to follow at the school at 7:30.